often ask at this period of their
education. On hearing extraordinary facts, some children will not be
satisfied with vague assertions; others content themselves with
saying, "It is so, I read it in a book." We should have little hopes
of those who swallow every thing they read in a book; we are always
pleased to see a child hesitate and doubt, and require positive proof
before he believes. The taste for the marvellous, is strong in
ignorant minds; the wish to account for every new appearance,
characterizes the cultivated pupil.

A lady told a boy of nine years old (S----) the following story, which
she had just met with in "The Curiosities of Literature." An officer,
who was confined in the Bastille, used to amuse himself by playing on
the flute: one day he observed, that a number of spiders came down
from their webs, and hung round him as if listening to his music; a
number of mice also came from their holes, and retired as soon as he
stopped. The officer had a great dislike to mice; he procured a cat
from the keeper of the prison, and when the mice were entranced by his
music, he let the cat out amongst them.

S---- was much displeased by this man's treacherous conduct towards
the poor mice, and his indignation for some moments suspended his
reasoning faculty; but, when S---- had sufficiently expressed his
indignation against the officer in the affair of the mice, he began
to question the truth of the story; and he said, that he did not think
it was certain, that the mice and spiders came to listen to the music.
"I do not know about the mice," said he, "but I think, perhaps, when
the officer played upon the flute, he set the air in motion, and shook
the cobwebs, so as to disturb the spiders." We do not, nor did the
child think, that this was a satisfactory account of the matter; but
we mention it as an instance of the love of investigation, which we
wish to encourage.

The difficulty of judging concerning the truth of evidence increases,
when we take moral causes into the account. If we had any suspicion,
that a man who told us that he had seen an apple fall from a tree, had
himself pulled the apple down and stolen it, we should set the
probability of his telling a falsehood, and his motive for doing so,
against his evidence; and though according to the natural physical
course of things, there would be no improbability in his story, yet
there might arise improbability from his character for dishonesty; and
thus w